Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Busy Bruce Blake Shares a Peek at His Upcoming Novel

Welcome back, Bruce Blake! What have you been up to lately?

At a time when doing promo is paramount,
I've gotten myself behind. You see, I'm releasing my next book on September 30,
and there is lots yet to do. The formatting is almost complete, I'm awaiting
the final proof of the cover, the blurb is not yet written, and I have to find
places to do pre-release promo. Thanks to Doug Simpson and the TTC Virtual Blog
Tour, I have a place to do the last, but the rest is still in process.

So you don't get a blurb, but you do get a
piece of chapter 2.

Excerpt from Blood of the King

A helm clattered off the wall walk, bouncing
end over end down the stairs. It hit Khirro’s foot, startling him and sending a
jolt of pain up his leg. When he looked to see what hit him, he recognized the
dead eyes of a member of the king’s guard staring back at him from within the
helm. A pained grimace twisted the face, blood dripped from severed tendons and
ragged veins. Khirro recoiled, pain flashing down his spine. He kicked at the
head, the sound of his armor scraping stone impossibly loud in his ears. His
toe contacted the helmet painfully, sending it spinning across the landing. It
trailed off blood spatters as it rolled to the edge then disappeared over the
brink. Khirro breathed a sigh of relief.

“Help me.”

Khirro flinched. The king’s plea came again,
a breathy whisper barely audible above the sounds of battle. Chickens ran about
after their heads were removed, but nothing could speak without life remaining
within. Khirro shifted painfully onto his side.

“My king,” he whispered.

Braymon lay in a tangled heap, hips wrenched
farther than possible, one arm pinned beneath him, the other twisted behind.
Blood streamed from his shaven head onto his cheeks and into his eyes, a mask
of red through which little flesh showed. He blinked clearing his vision, a
slow, lethargic movement, then directed his gaze toward Khirro. A pained smile
twitched his lips; it quickly turned to a grimace.

“I thought you lost, lad.”

The blood drained from Khirro’s cheeks.

“No, your highness. I... I was knocked
unconscious. I’ve only just woken to find you here beside me.” The lie tasted
more bitter than the coppery tang of blood on his tongue.

Relief. He didn’t ask to be avenged or
dragged back to the battle to die a soldier’s death. Khirro glanced at the
blood pooling beneath the king’s contorted body, flowing from some unseen spot
under his plate mail, and pushed himself up to kneel beside Braymon to better
assess his condition. The battle raged above but no one appeared on the stair.

“You shouldn’t be moved,” Khirro said after
consideration. The way the king’s body twisted upon itself made him feel sick.
“It would mean your life.”

Braymon shook his head minutely. “It matters
not. I must get to the healer before the warmth has left my body or all is
lost.”

“I don’t think--”

“Soldier,” Braymon said with a tone of
command befitting a king. “If you do this thing, all else will be forgiven.”

Khirro gaped at the king’s words. He fought
to keep tears at bay as guilt siphoned the strength from his limbs. His mouth
moved trying to form the words to apologize for not rejoining the fight, to beg
forgiveness, to explain, but his constricted throat choked them. Instead, he
nodded.

“You’ll have to remove my armor to carry me.”
Khirro stripped the king’s
armor as quickly and quietly as his hurts allowed. Each time he shifted the
king, Braymon’s face contorted with deeper levels of pain, but he never cried
out, and each piece of armor Khirro removed revealed more horror. The king’s
blood-soaked underclothes stuck to him like a second skin; the jagged end of a
bone punched through the flesh of one thigh; a loop of intestines protruded
from a long cut in his abdomen. As he uncovered each injury, Khirro felt more
grateful to be alive and whole and his own injuries seemed less significant. By
the time he finished removing all the pieces, the king’s eyes were closed, his
face taut with pain, cheeks pale. Khirro had to look closely to ensure he still
drew breath.

“We’ve no time to lose.” Braymon said in a
strained whisper. “Take me to the center keep.”

Khirro stood, teeth gritted against his own
meager pain. He reached for Braymon but stopped, unsure how to proceed. He saw
no way to pick up the injured man.

“Don’t concern yourself with my pain, it will
end soon enough. Put me over your shoulder.”

A shudder wracked Khirro’s spine as he paused
to look around. A few men ran about the courtyard below, but they were distant.
Above, the fighting reached the top of the stairs. Two Kanosee soldiers—one
wearing gray leather, the other the black breast plate splashed with red—hacked
at soldiers of the king’s army who tried to keep them from the stairway. Khirro
hoped they’d hold them long enough. He bent and hooked the king by the armpits,
struggling to pull the dead weight from the ground. The king clenched his jaw,
every muscle he could control straining to help.

Finally, the king’s limp form flopped over
Khirro’s shoulder. He imagined he felt the soft flesh of his innards through
his leather armor and his stomach flipped, forcing bile into his mouth. He
swallowed it. The pain proved too much for the king and a cry tore from
Braymon’s bloodied lips as his broken body pressed against Khirro’s shoulder.

Khirro looked back up the stairs, hoping no
one heard. At first he thought the Gods with him as the fight continued, but
one of the Erechanians fell and as the gray leather-clad Kanosee pulled his
sword from the man, he leaned toward his companion and pointed down the stair.

A sword flashed and the man fell, but Khirro
saw no more as he turned and rushed down the stairs, focusing on his feet
hitting each one and not over-balancing under the king’s weight.

What
people are saying about Blood of the King:

-“Blood of the King is a
masterpiece.” “...as close to perfection
as I would consider a book to be.” -
Ella Medler, author of Blood is Heavier

What people are saying about Bruce
Blake:

-“Blake has a knack for bringing
you into the story...I can honestly say I am a Bruce Blake fan.”

-“Mr. Blake's writing is
masterful and clear, he draws you into his story and when it's finished, you
feel like you're leaving an old friend.”

-“Bruce Blake is fantastic with
his ability to weave so many elements, twists and turns, into his work...” - Amazon Reader reviews

Biography

Bruce Blake lives
on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. When pressing issues like
shovelling snow and building igloos don't take up his spare time, Bruce can be
found taking the dog sled to the nearest coffee shop to work on his short
stories and novels.

Actually,
Victoria, B.C. is only a couple hours north of Seattle, Wash., where more rain
is seen than snow. Since snow isn't really a pressing issue, Bruce spends more
time trying to remember to leave the "u" out of words like
"colour" and "neighbour" then he does shovelling. The
father of two, Bruce is also the trophy husband of burlesque diva Miss Rosie
Bitts.

Bruce has been
writing since grade school but it wasn't until five years ago he set his sights
on becoming a full-time writer. Since then, his first short story,
"Another Man's Shoes" was published in the Winter 2008 edition of
Cemetery Moon, another short, "Yardwork", was made into a podcast in
Oct., 2011 by Pseudopod and his first Icarus Fell novel, "On Unfaithful
Wings", was published to Kindle in Dec., 2011. The second Icarus Fell
novel, “All Who Wander Are Lost”, was released in July, 2012, and the first
book in the two-part “Khirro's Journey” epic fantasy is scheduled for Sept. 30,
2012. He has plans for at least three more Icarus novels, several stand alones,
and a possible YA fantasy co-written with his eleven-year-old daughter.

4 comments:

Wow! What a fantastic scene. Great description, plenty of action, lots of tension. My husband and I both will enjoy this book.FYI: I found your blog through LinkedIn's "New Authors Need Marketing Ideas / Got a Blog-Site Post It Here" group.

The Doug Simpson Story

Doug Simpson is a retired high school teacher who has turned his talents to writing. His first novel, a spiritual mystery titled Soul Awakening, was published in the United States in October of 2011, by Booklocker. It was reissued in October of 2012 by 5 Prince Publishing as Soul Awakening, Book I of the Dacque Chronicles. For further details visit them at http://5princebooks.com/. It is available in print and eBook format through most bookstores around the world. Soul Rescue, Book II of the Dacque Chronicles will be published in November of 2012. His magazine and website articles have been published in 2010 to 2012 in Australia, Canada, France, India, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. His articles can be accessed through his website at http://dousimp.mnsi.net.